


Queer Theory 101

by laughablyunimportant



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gender Identity, Gender Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 21:06:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1702535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughablyunimportant/pseuds/laughablyunimportant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Dave have something important to tell each other, but fight over who gets to tell who first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queer Theory 101

**Author's Note:**

> In response to the prompt: Remember when Dave and John awkwardly tried to come out as nonbinary (as bisexual or pansexual) to each other, assuming the other hadn't yet admitted it really was a thing, and ended up fighting over who got to come out of the closet first?

TG: theres something i need to tell you  
EB: there's something i need to tell you.

John paused, fingers hovering over the keyboard. That was kind of...ominous.

TG: alright so that was weird  
TG: but my things a real thing so we should probably jam about this in person  
TG: and then you can wax poetic about your wicked bro crush on me after or whatever

John frowned, gut twisting at the mention of a "bro crush." Was it weird that that phrase was weird? Was it only weird because of the impending confession? Like, did the term "bro" apply, still? Did it even matter? Because the term "bro" was pretty silly to begin with, and putting quotes around it and treating it like some big thing was definitely silly.

EB: okay jackass, let me just drop the SUPER IMPORTANT THING i have to tell you and blather on about puppets and rapping for hours.  
EB: that sounds like the best use of my afternoon ever!  
EB: not.

TG: wow harsh how am i ever going to recover from those wicked burns  
TG: its like the first soft flush of a sunburn after a single glancing reflection of UV rays from a poorly positioned window  
TG: whatever shall i do

EB: firstly: fuck you.  
EB: secondly: i really do need to tell you something and i guess meeting in person isn't the worst idea ever. 

TG: cool see you at the coffee place in five

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] --

EB: wait! i'm still in my pajamas...  
EB: damnit.

 

Dave jiggled his leg, glancing at the door, then the clock on his phone, then back to the door. (Maybe the second shot of espresso hadn't been the best idea.) John was late. But if he called John and asked if John was on the way, they'd get side-tracked in another pointless conversation and maybe even end up spilling his secret before John even got there. 

It's just that the later John was, the more time Dave had to doubt himself. It's not like it took him two years to work up the nerve to even explain this to anyone but Rose (who had figured it out on her own) or anything. No, he was totally cool about this. Super chill in his special snowflake status. Didn't at all feel like a dipshit for calling attention to a thing instead of just letting it be a thing he deals with, quietly, by himself, with no one else knowing ever. 

But Rose had a girlfriend and Jade was aro and they couldn't all keep tip-toeing around straighty-mcstraighterson forever, so if anyone was going to come out first, it was going to be Dave. It sort of felt like his responsibility, being John's best bro and all. (Besides, there was pretty much no way giving the duty to Jade wouldn't end up with John saying something awful and getting punched right in the face.)

Which was more and more aggravating to be when John was always late. 

The bell at the cafe's door announced John's arrival, not that Dave would know it, since he was too cool to look around just because of some loud ass jing-jangling. Nah, he just casually angled his phone up to see John in the reflection, spotting him and marching over in full excited "I have something to tell you" mode.

Getting a word in first was going to be difficult.

"Hey Dave," John said, settling into the seat opposite Dave without ordering. 

Dave arched an eyebrow at John, playing it slow. "Oh, hey Egbert, fancy running into you here."

John waved a hand at Dave dismissively. "Yeah yeah, you are mr. aloof coolguy, whatever. I have something to tell you."

Dave shifted, sitting more upright and leaning forward over the table. "Okay, but I have something to tell you first, and it's kind of important. It's going to take some explaining."

John snorted. "Everything you say takes explaining. Mine's going to be really quick, okay? And the sooner the better."

Dave shook his head. "Look, no, mine's something I've been needing to say for a long time. See, there's—"

"I think I'm not binary."

Dave blinked. "What."

John leaned forward, lifting a hand and gesticulate with it wildly. "So there's this thing called the gender binary, where everyone's a boy or a girl, right? But sometimes there's people that _aren't_ , so they're not binary. And I think that's me." John shifted back a little, giving a nervous grin.

Dave stared blankly. "What. No. No, that's—John that's not even a thing."

John's smile fell, brows furrowing. "Uhm, yes it is. Look, you know that cartoon Adventure Time? I always thought BMO was a girl, but it turns out if you pay really close attention she refers to herself as both a boy _and_ a girl, and this guy online was saying—let me just pull up the video, it will explain everything."

John fished out a phone, fiddling with the youtube app to find that PBS video. Bookmarking it would have really helped...there it was!

John pressed play, thrusting the phone in Dave's direction. Dave didn't bother looking at it, pushing the phone and John's hand both down to the table. 

"John, I need you to listen to me very closely. 'Not Binary' isn't a thing." John began to protest, but Dave kept going. "It's non-binary, and I would know, because _I am_. Non-binary, I mean. Uh, a demi-boy," he muttered, going quiet at the end.

John's brows furrowed. "What does that mean?"

Dave sighed, running a hand through his hair. "It means, like, it sort of means that I am a boy? A guy or dude or whatever, bro-slice just chillin, but straddling some lines, like." He let out a sharp breath, shoulders hunching. "Like, part boy and part, other. Something else." He looked off to the side, mumbling, "Sometimes I like people to use 'they' for me, y'know?"

"Uhm, no? I don't know? Are you making fun of me?"

Dave's eyes widened behind his shades. "What? No, what the fuck, how did this become about you again?"

"Because I just told you that I'm not binary and now you're saying almost the exact same thing but dumber?"

Dave went still, expression smoothing out to nothing even as his fists clenched tightly. "What. The fuck."

John gestured wildly in the air, getting loud enough to draw other people's attention. "That's what I'm saying! What the fuck, Dave. I'm trying to tell you something important I found out about myself and you're making fun of me! That's a super shitty thing for a friend to do."

"Oh my god, no, John, you are being such an unbelievable shithead right now, you don't even know. _I'm nonbinary_. That's what I came here to tell you. I've known for a long time but it's kind of hard to talk about because people don't really take you seriously when you're still using he/him/his and presenting as masculine most of the time but surprise! I'm queer as shit and it has nothing to do with you."

John's eyebrows rose, eyes wide. "Dave you can't _say_ that! What the hell! If you really are gay then you should _know_ that."

Dave followed John's words right up until "gay." Then he folded his arms on the table and buried his face, giving a muffled whine. "I did not sign up to educate John on queer theory 101. I mean, I did, but not like this. Never like this."

John just hissed, "Stop _saying_ that." 

Dave lifted his head, still hunched over the table, and held up a finger. "Okay, first thing: queer is a reclaimed slur often used as an umbrella term for people who would be described by cishets as 'the gay community,' because that's a shitty non-inclusive term for fuckheads. Secondly," he pushed on, straightening a bit, "non-binary is also an umbrella term for people who fall outside the male/female gender categories set up by society. Demi-boy describes exactly what my gender is, and questioning the legitimacy of my gender is the number one shittiest thing you could possibly do when I am trying to come out to you. You clearly have no idea what you're doing, and that's fine, I guess I can play the mr. miyagi to your gender questions-san, but only if you wise up to that fact that I'm like a million times more knowledgeable in this area than you."

Lips pursed, John seemed to contemplate what Dave had said before asking, "So...what's cishet?"

Dave thunked his head against the cafe table. "This is going to be such a long morning."

**Author's Note:**

> To be clear, Dave has really struggled with their gender and telling people about it, because they feel like they're making a big deal out of something that shouldn't be a big deal. Both Rose _and_ Jade actually know, he just doesn't know that Jade knows, and Rose especially is trying to gently steer him toward being more confident in his gender identity. It was her idea that he tell John. 
> 
> John, on the other hand, watched [this](https://youtu.be/uqtNSdDFGBM) yesterday and did a google search on "gender binary." Didn't actually click any of the links, just read the little blurbs from the search engine and decided that that was enough research, clearly it was time to tell Dave about this newfound self-discovery.
> 
> After a lot of talking with Dave and some actual research, John settles on "agender" and "they/them/their" pronouns.


End file.
